In Jail with the Scarlet Pimpernel
by SherlockianGirl
Summary: Chauvelin has been arrested and sent to the Temple Prison where he gets a most unexpected cellmate...


_**La, as I am still planning the next chapters of my other SP fic, I have suddenly craved to write a parody piece for the sake of fun, mostly at Chauvelin's expense. It's silly, but I simply had to write it.  
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_**[NOTE: Inconsistencies in the story have been made known to me, and I apologize for my lack of better SP knowledge. I am currently endeavoring to acquire and ravenously read the other SP books, but until then am at a bit of a disadvantage to you better-read SP historians :)] **_

_**And, of course, I don't own the characters, or the French Revolution, or the guillotine, or Chauvelin's cravat. They all belong to the Baroness or to history.  
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Chauvelin felt his stomach twist itself into knots as he descended the slimy stairs, surrounded by four ill-dressed guards. How had it come to this? The Temple Prison! For so long he had taken such keen pleasure in seeing the evils of French society thrown behind these bars, but now it was he who was to be locked up. He had been framed by that meddlesome Englishman, he had been framed!

"Here we are, Citizen," grinned one of the guards. "Your new headquarters."

"Good. I could use some peace and quiet in this damned city," Chauvelin muttered ruefully.

"You want peace? Ha! That man gives no one peace!"

"What man?"

The guard sneered, jerking his thumb toward the door. "The man in there."

Chauvelin blinked. "I…have…a cellmate?"

The soldiers giggled as if at some secret joke, the first one managing to say, "Aye, and a horrible one too."

Chauvelin rolled his eyes. "Really." It was in his experience that horrible people did, in fact, inhabit prisons.

"Citizen, you should fear for your life in there," the guard warned solemnly.

"I've met these rouges, these stuffy _aristos._ He will not bother me," Chauvelin retorted, sniffing proudly. Then he choked, as he had forgotten that the air in the Temple Prison was not fit to sniff proudly. Thus he proceeded to sniff proudly into his handkerchief.

Another guard snorted. "He bothers _everybody_." And with that he unlocked the cell and threw Chauvelin in. The door clanged heavily behind him and Chauvelin could hear their retreating footsteps clamoring up the stairs as their laughter echoed down the passage.

Then all was silent.

Silent until a strange, wailing tune came from the dark corner of the cell, drifting under the rotting rafters to meet his ears.

"La! Monsieur Chaubertin! It's a good thing I brought my harmonica, what?" a voice drawled from the corner.

Chauvelin couldn't decide whether to faint or bang his head against a wall. Or do both at the same time. He stared into the darkness. It couldn't be! No, they couldn't do this to him! They couldn't, they-

Sir Percy suddenly broke out into a catchy jig on his harmonica.

"For God's sake, Sir Percy, what are you doing?" Chauvelin hissed.

"It is my welcome song for you, my dear Chauvelbun. It has taken me all day to write the demmed thing, don't you see?"

"I…thank…you," Chauvelin managed between clenched teeth. "Now pray, never play it again."

"I even wrote you a theme song. It goes like this-"

"NO!"

"You prefer bagpipes, then?"

Chauvelin stared at him incredulously. "You have… bagpipes."

"Lud, man, don't all prisoners have them?"

Chauvelin was horrorstricken at the very thought of it. "No. No they don't."

Percy blew a shrieking note into the fearful instrument. "Sink me, that was not lovely."

Chauvelin suddenly felt extremely ill, even worse than earlier. "How, pray tell, how did you acquire bagpipes, Sir Percy?" he choked.

Percy flashed him a grin from his place in the shadows. "A gift from your good Citizen Robespierre, of course."

Suddenly it all fell into place. Robespierre had finally tired of Chauvelin's failures in capturing the Scarlet Pimpernel, and now he was exacting his perfect revenge: locking Chauvelin in prison with that annoying, detestable, and loud fop as his only companion and supplying this fop with whatever means possible to drive him crazy. And now Chauvelin's most intelligent enemy was playing the part of the idiot in prison. _On purpose. _

Chauvelin made a small choking sound.

"Why, Monsieur Chauvertin, you are turning blue!" observed the lazy voice from the corner of the cell.

And still the French ambassador could not breathe.

Percy rose and sauntered over to where Chauvelin stood. "Lud! Your cravat must be on too tight!" He reached forward and fiddled with the black piece of cloth. "Terribly sorry!" he said, watching Chauvelin's face turn a deeper shade of purple. "I must have tightened it."

"Don't touch me, you…you…" Chauvelin was seething, too angry to speak any further.

"Don't stammer, my dear Chauverton, it does not become you."

"…You idiot!" Chauvelin finished emphatically.

Percy smiled widely, a gesture that irritated his enemy all the more. "Yes, we English idiots are very good at undermining your little French Re- oh, what is the word?"

"Revolution."

"That's the thing! Long live the Republic, what?" Percy said, waving a small tri-color flag.

"It will live longer than you will, I dare say," Chauvelin glowered, adjusting his cravat.

"Threats, m'dear Chayberlin?"

"It's 'Chauvelin'!"

Percy's eyes widened in alarm, his gaze darting around the dark cell. "Where?"

"_Me_, you mindless fop!"

Percy frowned. "I could have sworn your name was Chauvelbun."

"You know very well what my name is!" Chauvelin bellowed.

"Chau...Chau…ve…lin?" Percy tested the word.

Chauvelin rolled his eyes, his hands twitching. "Yes, that's it."

"Demmed hard name to remember."

Chauvelin glared at him, clenching and unclenching his jaw. "Apparently."

Percy sighed as he glanced about the gloomy chamber. "Such little to do, one man can become positively bored in here."

"You wish to be _entertained_?" Chauvelin stared at this strange man, the source of so much mayhem and distress, whose life was so full of danger and excitement, who now complained of being bored in jail.

"La! But now that you're here, we shall have such fun!"

"Sir Percy," Chauvelin said levelly. "Should you not focus on the fate you are now facing?"

Percy looked at what he was facing and laughed. "I could hardly call you "my fate", m'dear fellow."

Oh, the impertinence. Chauvelin ignored the sarcastic comment as best he could as he fixed the Englishman with a withering glare. "Sir Percy, I meant your meeting with Madame Guillotine."

Percy suddenly seemed deep in thought. "Hum, the lady's name seems familiar. Ah yes. I believe I played cards with her once at his Majesty's ball…"

"Sir Percy, may I honestly put forth an opinion?" Chauvelin inquired coldly.

"I thought opinions were outlawed in your new free society."

Chauvelin's eyes fell on that annoying fop's cravat and his fingers itched to strangle said annoying fop with his own accessory of white-laced frou frou.

But a drawling voice suddenly cut through his fond reverie. "You had an opinion you wished to share?"

Chauvelin glowered at the interruption of his happy thoughts, but spoke through gritted teeth, "I wish to express with all the sincerity in the world that I profoundly hate you and wish to kill you as soon as possible."

Percy laughed his irritating, inane, foppish laugh. "Then you share the opinion of most of revolutionary France, monsieur. What an original opinion, what?"

"Why do you do it?" Chauvelin suddenly burst out in exasperation. "Why save these damned aristocrats?"

"Because they are innocent, my misguided, revolutionary, and bloodthirsty friend." Percy peered down at Chauvelin through his eyes lense with a smile. "And because it irks you."

Chauvelin crossed his arms with a satisfied smirk. "It seems now, Sir Percy, that you will be quite incapable of any more mischief."

Percy began to pace in circles around Frenchman, twirling his eye lense around his neck. "Lud love me, m'dear Chauvertine, but I shall save many more necks from the guillotine. Except for yours, I should think, for your are neither aristocratic or innocent."

"Those are your reasons?" the French ambassador queried with a sadistic smile.

"And your style-less clothes. I should have to stuff you in a sack before I could bring myself to rescue you."

"Is that all?" Chauvelin snarled, his patience nearly gone.

Percy strode back to his small cot in the corner. "Odd's life, but I believe I made a list…"

"ENOUGH!" Chauvelin roared. That was it. The fop was going to get it.

Percy looked surprised at the outburst, then looked down at his feet. "Oh, dem it all, I stepped on my bagpipes."

Chauvelin almost laughed in triumph. A miracle! Now where was that-

"La! But we still have my harmonica!" Percy beamed, producing it from the pocket of his yellow-striped vest.

Chauvelin wanted to pinch himself. This _must _be a nightmare. But the horrible reality continued for the poor Frenchman when the cell door suddenly clamored open, and the same four guards appeared in the doorway. "Monsieur."

"Which one?" Percy asked nonchalantly, reaching to fix Chauvelin's sorry cravat.

"Don't touch me!"

"It's monstrous, m'dear fellow. We can't have you going to the guillotine with an unpoofed cravat, what?"

"How do you know that it's me they want?" Chauvelin hissed back.

The guard simply pointed from where he stood. "Him."

Chauvelin suddenly was overwhelmed with terror. His time had come! The guillotine! Oh, had he only…

The head officer continued. "He is to accompany us to see Citizen Robespierre. Citizen Chauvelin has been issued a pardon, but is expected to see His Excellency immediately."

Chauvelin rounded on Sir Percy with a bark of laughter. "Farewell, Sir Percy! This has been rather diverting, but I am ordered to leave, I'm afraid. But I shall watch for your visit with Madame Guillotine tomorrow, do not worry."

But Percy was too busy brushing dust from his finely laced sleeves to notice.

*****

Robespierre had been forced restore him, given that none of his staff were quite ruthless or intelligent enough for the job as Chauvelin had been. And, with the Scarlet Pimpernel already imprisoned, Robespierre found no further reason to punish his chief ambassador beyond what he had already endured this day.

Chauvelin could not resist the urge to flaunt his newly restored status in the face of the doomed Englishman. He raced down the stairs, back to the cell that, until fifteen minutes ago, he had occupied. He chuckled to himself as he had the cell door unbolted and strode swiftly into the room.

Empty.

Chauvelin's face fell in a spasm of utter rage as his eyes lit on a piece of paper on the floor. He snatched it up, and read:

_M. Chauvelin,_

_As you may have ascertained, my men (your four guards) have safely escorted me from this lovely French prison of yours to safety. But have no fear, m'dear fellow, for I am certain we shall meet again soon. Until then, you may have my harmonica._

Chauvelin crushed the note in his hands. Damn that Scarlet Pimpernel.


End file.
